


The Wolf and The Scorpion

by homicidalbrunette



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Ancient Egypt, Bubonic Plague, Dracula - Freeform, Egypt, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Historical, Historical Fantasy, Mother of Evil, Prophecy, Reincarnation, Werewolves, black death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2018-12-30 15:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12111651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homicidalbrunette/pseuds/homicidalbrunette
Summary: Endlessly circling one another.Stories of Ethan and Vanessa, of lives lived again and again. Of reincarnated souls.Do you think such a thing is possible?





	1. Pyramids

**Author's Note:**

> The fic summary is comprised of direct quotes from the show. I own nothing (Logan unfortunately does and he wronged them terribly.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the end. The Wolf and the Scorpion in ancient Egypt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the Frank Ocean song about the tragic death of an ancient Egyptian queen and her modern-day incarnation.

They keep you under lock and key.

Slave and scribe, farmer and Pharaoh, fear you. None speak your name, lest they be cursed _. Scorpion Queen_ , they name you. 

You have strange powers. I can hear you at night on the other side of the locked doors. Foreign tongues. Two voices. A man’s voice, or a snake’s, and your own. Sometimes, your screams. I know there is none else in that tower but you.  

The Priests say you are a gift to the dark God. They say with your union, the good Pharaoh will reign for a hundred thousand years, the harvests will flow with milk and honey, and all will ascend into the Gods’ paradise.

I guard the Priests in their lunar rituals. They bring slaves and starving farmers. I see the blood drained. Sacrifices, they say. Meals. Their blood feeds him and with each he grows stronger. Is this the paradise they say your union will bring us? 

Scorpions pour from beneath your door. You scream all night. _Help me._

I break the rules.

The room I enter is bare and empty. You are just a woman, thin and harried, bloodied where you scratch yourself and the walls. I help you spoon thin porridge into your cracked lips. _Please, your presence comforts me._ I stay until your eyes close peacefully in sleep.  

_Little scorpion._

_My name is Amunet,_ you tell me. 

You are just a woman, like any other of the Pharaoh’s kingdom. _We are not like others. We have claws for a reason._

I visit with you, against orders. There is a calmness. You no longer scream, scratch at yourself. There are still two voices, but now they are yours and mine. There is peace, when we are together. We both feel it. 

 _Wolf of God_ , you say. 

You have visions. You see past time, you see other worlds. Another city on the river, with towers taller than our greatest pyramids. A man shooting fireworks of rounded arrows from his hip. A pale woman with black hair _. Endlessly circling one another._ A thousand stinging scorpions. A wolf howls in the moonlight. _We are dangerous._

I lay with you. All is peace. 

When the Priests find me, they strip me bare. _You and yours shall be fed to the wolves._ I watch the men under my command die for my time with you. I know I am next. In the distance, I can hear your screams. As I wait to die, the morning sun fades into the unnatural night. A foul fog appears, enveloping all. I hear the night creatures hiss as they crawl into the welcoming darkness. Owls, foxes, rats and serpents. Scorpions. I know they have taken you to the dark God.

Our kingdom’s blood pours into the dark God’s hungry mouth. This was the paradise they spoke of. 

My skin burns as the wolf teeth bites into my flesh. I only see the blinding light of the full, red moon.

_And I know my destiny, whatever it might be, is somehow intertwined with hers._

I dream. A creature with white wings, and a man’s face, speaks to me. _You may be done with Hell, but it is not done with you._ A wolf howls in the moonlight. _If you have one purpose in your cursed life._

She is damned. _Not while you walk this Earth._

_Wolf of God._

We rise with fang and claw. _It is unholy carnage._ We come for him, the army of wolves. _For claw will slash and tooth will rend. There can not be a happy end._

 _My protector._  

His armies scatter, his Priests flee and die. But it is not enough.

_It’s too late._

I find you, standing amongst the ruins of the tower that was your prison. The dark God has fled, and you are alone. _You are not alone. You never were._

A flash of fire, a screaming noise. You have visions. You see past time, you see other worlds. A woman dies in a man’s arms _. Please... Ethan. With a kiss. With love._

_Let it end._

The dread fog recedes. The night creatures sink away. We write the ending in blood. As it was always going to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ~tried~ to be true to the point of view of an ancient Egyptian man and how he would view modern warfare, like guns, obviously before the invention of gunpowder etc, and how he would view an Angel, when he existed before Christianity and our modern-day concept of the Christian angel. I liked that Logan, though he very clearly based the show’s mythology on Christianity with the inclusion of Lucifer and all of that, made it seem like this truly was a global, ancient battle that extended across cultures and time, and how that translated to non-Western religion like the Apache and their own version of the Wolf of God (as explicated in that otherwise awful cave scene with Hecate). So I wanted to think about how this battle would translate to pre-Christian, ancient Egyptian times and with their gods. I wanted to to turn Dracula/Lucifer into a dark God who fed off the blood of humans, before there was the concept of a vampire.
> 
> Sorry for the excessive use of italics. I wanted them to represent both dialogue and use of the show’s actual quotes itself to reinforce the story and make it congruent to the circularity of the mythology - reincarnation, events and people having destinies they’re bound to repeat etc. I was also inspired by fan videos that tell a story through use of images and lines from the very show itself. I still bitterly, BITTERLY resent Logan but you gotta admit the man can write some BEAUTIFUL prose.


	2. Castles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Knight does not slay the Dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.

A fortnight ago, I saw your death. I was walking in your garden.

_Have you an interest in botany?_

And then I was walking in a wide field of red. The ground was slick with mud, the dirt watered by the blood of screaming men. All about me they shouted, ran, struggled, and died. In the distance, the Dragon’s men marched ceaselessly forward, blotting out the last of your men like ink on parchment.

You had been fighting since dusk, thinking to take his fortress under the fullness of the moon. You slew many of his creatures, but when dawn replaced moonlight, still more came.

I saw you. Blood covered your face, but it was not your own. A screaming man swung his axe at you, but your sword raised and he dropped, headless. You fell another man, and another, and another. You were tired. The Beast had left you, and now you were a man again.

And then you saw him.

The Dragon had come, boldly, in the flush of daylight. He was protected, from arrows, from steel, from sunlight, by the night black armor that enveloped him from head to toe. He held his great sword in front of him. It gleamed silver in the light. You raised your shield to meet the first blow, and watched as it shattered in front of you. Your sword met his as it came crashing down on you. The blades met and sprung apart, met and sprung apart again.

In the night, the Dragon had fled from you as you stormed his castle, and now you knew why. Why he had waited for the heat of the day, as you burned underneath heavy armor.

The Beast had left you, and now you were just a man.

_I have reason to fear him. He is foretold as my singular enemy._

I watched as the sword fell from your hand. The Dragon held you close, like a lover, as silver steel exploded through your armor, through your flesh. You saw me then. _Don’t look into his eyes._ You looked at me, looked through me, and died.

And then I was back in your garden, amongst the flowers.

******

He was my betrothed. The rumors of his ambition, his ruthlessness. The whispers of his cruelty. His armies were unrelenting, bringing to heel neighboring lands and vassals, until he was on my father’s shores.

He had many names. The Dragon, he favored. Vlad. Dracula.  

We braced for conquest and ugly death. They said he was fond of impaling his enemies.

But he wanted only me. And my father readily gave. Our kingdom and people were spared. I was to wait for him, the Dragon’s Bride.

Our vassals, those that were as yet untaken by the Dragon’s men, came to celebrate our union. In truth, they feared him. They came to pay tribute.

They trickled into court one by one, awaiting his arrival. Great houses, bearing their family sigils. The Owl, the Viper, the Stag, the Fox, and the Bear. You arrived under the banner of two black beasts with red mouths beneath a crescent moon. _Uti costodient lupi._ The Wolf.

Each vassal presented a bride’s gift. Gold, bolts of silk, rare spices from the East, pretty gems. Your gift was an amber scorpion, droplets of ruby blood falling from her golden stinger. My family’s sigil. “You may be the Dragon’s Bride, but you are a Scorpion still.” Your bow was deep, your kiss on my hand lingered.

I watched the dancing. You twirled many of the noble daughters of Owl, Viper, Stag, Fox, and Bear.

_Always look in your opponent's eyes._

Your gaze never left mine.

_******_

We walk together on the ramparts of my father’s castle. I look into the distance, and see a vision of the Dragon and his men pouring over the land. _I am affected by forces beyond our world._ I shiver, but your hand is warm on mine. _I believe in curses._ A spark passes between our fingers. _I believe in monsters._ A man changes in the moonlight.

“Black beasts with red mouths, under a crescent moon. You are marked.” _Whatever you have made yourself._ “Are you afraid?” _I’m here to accept you._

“I am not afraid,” you tell me. _We’re together for a reason._ “Are you?”

“I am the Dragon’s Bride.” _They will hunt me to the end of days._  “It is my fate.”

_******_

When the Dragon reaches our shores, you kneel before me.

“ _Uti costodient lupi._ So the wolves will protect. The words of my house.” _We are not like others. We have claws for a reason._ “My sword is yours.” _I’m with you._ “I swear it.”

_She has a protector. And he is powerful._

“Arise, my knight.” _Lupus Dei._ We ride for your family’s keep.

_******_

I saw your death in a vision. I saw your death as I walked on a battlefield.

The Dragon comes now. I wait for him, in the ruins of your ancestral home. Your family is dead; your men have fled the things that feed at night.

_The house of the night creatures. Where I belong._

When the Dragon greets me, he grins with your blood on his teeth. “I almost missed him. Where you appear, he is never far.” _Endlessly circling one another. “_ Lupus Dei born of the House of the Wolf? How obvious and dull your God is. Now his beast is dead.”

_We are the lonely night creatures, are we not?_

“I’ve waited for you for centuries.”

_A series of shabby identities in vulgar worlds. From one tragic age to another._

“Warlord has been my favorite mask. There is much blood in war. My children gorge on it’s endless flowing. Our children, Dragon Bride. Mother of Evil.”

_I don't want to make you good, I don't want you to be normal._

“It’s time, beloved.”

 _Why not be who you are instead?_   

The Dragon sinks his teeth into my throat. I taste my own blood. It is bitter. _Like all beautiful things._ Atropa belladonna from your garden. _Why does the scorpion sting?_ Nightshade, crushed into my wine. _To protect itself._

The Dragon chokes on my stinking blood. _To kill its enemies._

I sink into blackness. _Do you accept me?_

“I am no dragon’s bride.” I write the ending in poison. I write the ending in blood. “I am a Scorpion.”

_I accept myself._

As it was always going to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since reincarnation was so heavily implied in the series, you just knew their story was begging for a medieval incarnation along with the more established Ancient Egypt incarnation. All those declarations of protection from Ethan, as a knight to his Lady, the deleted scene of Vanessa interpreting Ethan pulling out a "Knight of Swords" tarot card, and that scene where Ethan finds a medieval family crest represented by wolves (and yes, I'm also a big A Song of Ice and Fire fan and took shameless cues with the Houses and sigils stuff.) I wrote with the intention that the family crest Ethan finds in the British Museum was from the family he once belonged to in his medieval life, so the description of the banner and the latin words came from the stills of that scene. 
> 
> I was always kind of low-key bothered by how the monsters on the show were killed by guns and bullets like regular humans, and how they never got a chance to address Lupus Dei's weaknesses, like say, silver bullets? So Ethan is killed here by a silver sword. 
> 
> And again, sorry for the excessive use of italics, meant to indicate direct show quotes.


	3. Pestilence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They called it the "Scorpion's sting," a kind of eternal infection that had no end, not in time or death.
> 
> \- Penny Dreadful, Little Scorpion, Season 2 Episode 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics indicate direct show quotes.

The visions start after her one-and-tenth birthday. She tends to the newly born calves and collapses in the pasture. Her eyes go white as she writhes in the dirt.

She sees a man who is not a man, but a beast. _The mystery guest at the party._  She sees him riding into battle, a scarlet cross emblazoned on the tunic of his armor. _I think this figure is a threat to the Demon's plans._ A warrior of God. His face is cast in shadows. _Like a musical refrain sounding over and over._ She sees a wolf snarl under the bright moon, its maw wide to reveal sharp teeth, slavering in hunger. _It's a danger to him._ She is not afraid.

She sees another man. _A dark lover approaching._ A handsome smile, a soft whisper in the ear. _Irresistible, part of you, but not._  A light touch that becomes a piercing sting. Behind his smile, a pool of blood. _The whisper of something ghastly and beautiful._ She fears.

_Little Scorpion. Mother of Evil. You must choose._

_He comes._

 ******

The visions continue. The villagers began to whisper. _Oracle_ , _sorceress,_ they say. _Witch._

She sees death, and dying. She sees blood, rivers of it. A great room, in some rich lord’s manse, filled with twirling lords and ladies, dancing as a crimson rain pours. A girl lies, naked, at the foot of a basin where an old crone bathes in gore. The crone’s sagging flesh soon becomes soft and young again, as she hums a song.

She sees a black-haired woman with tear-stained eyes as a man sinks sharp teeth in her neck. _Do you accept me?_ She sees the woman again, in a candlelit room, with a much different man. They pray together, and weep _. Please, Ethan._

She sees all light ending. _The world will live in darkness._ Toads, snakes, locusts and other things slither and crawl, enveloping all. _And the Night Creatures will emerge and feed._ She sees men coughing blood, women and children with great weeping sores on their faces, dying. _The very air will be pestilence to mankind._

She waits.

******

She dreams. The man and the woman who prayed. His hair is longer now, like some of the men in the village. He pulls soft covers over the woman as she settles into a wide bed. He kisses her forehead. _You’re safe here._ In a foggy forest, they laugh as she gathers the herbs. _You’re gonna make someone a great little wifey one day._ They dance, spinning round and round in an earthen room. There is fire. There is a kiss in the rain.

 _You must choose. He comes._  

She waits.

******

On a cold night, when her breath frosts in the air, he arrives.

He is a weary traveler, he says, and has come from far. Her father, a kindly man, takes pity and allows him quarter until the snows past.

The traveler helps her feed the chickens, lead the cows to pasture. _I feel I owe you for this. What can I teach you?_ He shows her how to sharpen a sword, and shoot an arrow. _You haven’t done this before? Why am I not surprised?_

She learns more of him. He is journeying home, after many years in the east. Lands of sand and of silk, of ancient deities and old prophecies. The Crusades. Fighting for His glory and His will.

When the moon is full, the traveler disappears. She finds him the next morning, shaking. There is sadness in his eyes.

“There is a monster in me.” _Miss Ives, I’m not who you think I am._ “I must go.” _And before I hurt you, or anyone here, I need to get away._

“I saw you. In a dream.” _We’re together for a reason. “_ In a vision.” _God’s plan?_ She makes a choice. _We can lock the doors and walk away forever._

She leaves behind all that she knows. _You know you have a destiny._ The wolf, or the monster. The monster, and all on earth bleed and die. Only the wolf can protect. _You will not surrender while I live._ She makes the choice. _Walk with me._ They leave together that night.

_******_

She dreams. A young man walks in the woods with a golden-haired girl. He does not love her, but he wants to be a man before he goes.

She follows him trustingly, the pale beam of the moon lighting their path. 

“You bested all the other lads today,” she speaks, shyly. “It must come naturally to you.” _I am made for the dark._ “You will protect us well and win glory for God.” _They didn't protect anything. They just fed._

He smells the sharp scent of the leaves and the damp earth of the soil. He hears his heart thrumming in his chest, or is it hers?

“Will you bless me before I go? With a kiss?” _The life of a theatrical gentleman is peripatetic, darlin'._

When her lips meet his, he tastes the lingering sweetness of berries. He feels the heat of her warm body. He feels the moon at his back. He feels pain. _I have these blackouts._

“Are you well?” _There's usually blood._

He feels agony. The moonlight blinds him.

_You couldn't hear anything, but the blood splashing on the ground._

He wakes naked, next to his golden-haired maid. He is stained with her maiden’s blood. With all her blood. It covers him as a cold sweat. _It was unholy carnage._ She lies dead, her throat gapes open red as a mouth. _They'd tear out the windpipe first._

She is his first. _The first time is hard._ The first one he remembers. But there came others. The butcher’s boy, savaged by wild dogs. _The second time is easier._ The widowed potter, torn apart by brutes in the night. _Third time, you don’t blink._ The candlemaker’s wife, mauled by night creatures. _You’re alive and they’re dead._  

His sister. A girl of seven, with flowers in her chestnut hair. In the cold gray dawn, his mother finds them.

“Monster. Monster.” _You have been chosen._ “What have you done?” _You have a profound destiny._

“Mother,” _There’s blood on my teeth._ “Please –” _And in my soul, I think._

“You are not mine. Not my son. Leave this place and never return. Not to me and mine.”

“Mother. Please….” _There’s no walking away from what I am. “_ I want peace. Only peace. Help me.”

“Do you truly want peace, son?” _You’ll never get your soul back._

“Yes.” _Not ever._

“Then here.” She places a dagger in his bloodied hands. Its blade is silver and sharp as a kiss. “Let it end.” _Don’t let me hurt anyone._  

She watches as he takes the dagger, and sees the tears in his eyes. _When the moment comes._ He takes a breath, and says a prayer. _Look into my eyes._ He disappears the silver blade into his own heart. _And pull the trigger._ Then he is gone.

In her dream, she sees his mother smile, and how everlastingly black her eyes become in the gray dawn.

******

The fog is thick the night she weds the traveler. When they lay together as man and wife, the sickness arrives.  

At first a cough, then a fever. Then sores that weep blood and pus appear on the hands and face. Some retch blood. Black spots grow on the fingers, blooming to the arms, the body, until a rotting thing remains. All die in agony.

Within a fortnight, her village is dead. The affliction spreads to the next town, and then it sweeps over the countryside, into the cities.

The plague, they called it. The Black Death. _The very air will be pestilence to mankind._ No one knows where it came from, or how to escape it. _And our brethren, the Night Creatures, will emerge and feed._

There is misery, there is panic. Millions die. She can feel them all, taste their pain and fear, the dying now and the dying to come, for generations. _Look at me. This is what I've done._

She cries. The Wolf is dead. His body was cold before ever she met the traveler.  _Deep in the cold clay on a forgotten hill._

She does not know who the traveler is. _He’s a tactician, above all._ Did he fight in the Crusades, as the Wolf was meant to, or was that a game, too? _He'll approach you with stealth and strategy, not a frontal assault._

He is the monster, not the Wolf. _He'll seduce you, not attack you._

He is the wrong choice. _It’s too late._

She takes the traveler’s sword, whetting the blade in even strokes, as he had once taught her to. _My battle must end._

When it is sharp enough to prick her skin as it rests in her hands, she places the blade against her throat. _Or there will never be peace on Earth._

She writes the ending in blood. As it was always going to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I intended for this series to proceed chronologically, but I guess I've mucked up the waters. I'm a history nerd and find it fun to imply that fictional characters had a hand in famous historical events (though don't worry, Vanessa and Ethan will never meet Elvis, sorry), so in "Castles", Vlad the Impaler (the real dude that actually existed) was meant to be one of Dracula's mortal identities that he takes up (kinda like in the original Dracula novel). And in this chapter, since the show went on alot about how Vanessa causing the end of days = plague, I figured why was there the Bubonic Plague? Seems like something Mother of Evil gone bad woulda caused. But I think that the Bubonic Plague actually came before Vlad the Impaler, so it's a tad out of chronological order now. Oh well. 
> 
> If these two reincarnated since Ancient Egypt, I figured there must be some lifetimes where they completely miss each other for whatever reason. And if Ethan never shows up on the scene, well Vanessa's pretty much left without her protector. Which would probably = end of days, at least temporarily. I realize that this fic can get depressing. I want to stay true to what Logan wrote, that Drac/Lucifer are unrelenting and would never allow Ethan/Vanessa to live a full happy life without trying to bring about the Apocalypse, and the only way to stop them would be to kill one/both of them, so because Drac/Lucifer are still very much active in Penny Dreadful times, I assume Van/Ethan have not found a way to thwart them in any previous incarnation, otherwise they wouldn't continue to be a problem in the 19th century. I do plan to eventually overtake their 19th century/Penny Dreadful incarnations and go into modernity, and at that point, well, all bets will be off. In the meantime, I remain an Angst Queen soooo...sorry 'bout it. Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Expecting Fluff.


	4. Plantations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been about a one year hiatus and I have nothing to say for myself.

Your mother came from Africa, you say. Madinka or Fulani or Bantu, you’re not sure. Some great kingdom of the mother land. You say she taught you things from that dark continent, ways of knowing, ways of seeing. Things to protect the slave from the master, to help endure the endless cruelty of this land.

 

That is how we first met, as I screamed in agony from a broken arm. I will be whipped if I can not clear the fields tomorrow. You lay the poultice on, smelling of earth and flowers. Something rare, and deadly. _Like all beautiful things._ I think you recite a prayer under your breath. It is not in English, and not in any African tongue.

 

In the morning, my arm is no longer broken. _Witch woman_ , some of the others call you. _Black scorpion._

A woman births a baby in blood, stillborn and silent. You say your prayers in the strange tongue, and the baby cries with new life. A man wishes to visit his wife on another plantation. He comes to your cabin and a deep fog rolls in that night, and the Master’s patrolmen do not see. A girl is forced every night by the Master’s son. You cut her, and draw a bloody scorpion on her doorstep. The Master’s son does not come again.

 

The Master wants the woods cleared for more of his cotton flowers. He makes the men work night and day. One night, with only the light of the full moon to guide me back to the cabins, a wild wolf meets me. I am among the fastest of the Master’s men, but this time, I am not fast enough.

 

The others find me the next morning, on their way back. _You should have died_. On me is the wolf’s mark, a red gash on my left calf.

 

I heal, and grow stronger. Sometimes, I wake up outside, in strange places, naked. There is blood on my teeth and on my hands. _And in my soul, I think._

You look at me strangely now.

 

_We are not like others. We have claws for a reason._

 

Your reputation grows. There are whispers of you and what you can do. Slaves risk life and limb to come to you, from near and far, asking help for the sick, or for a reunion with family long sold away.

 

Others come too. One day, a strange white man. He is an aristocrat from the Old World, they say. He has heard of the Black Scorpion, the slave girl who uses African magic to heal and to curse.

 

This is nothing to fear, or to punish, he tells our Master. In fact, he will pay triple the price for you.

 

The Master is a greedy man, and all find it strange when he refuses the Aristocrat’s offer.

 

You have spent many hours marking your cabin since the Aristocrat’s arrival. _Why does the Scorpion sting? To protect itself._

The others say, _It’s only a matter of time before she’s sold._

I see you with a lock of the Master’s hair, and that faraway look in his eyes returns as he again refuses the Aristocrat’s offer for you.

 

The Master and all his family are dead by the next moon’s turn. Their bloodless corpses are taken away as the Aristocrat’s belongings are carted into the Big House. He is our new Master now.

 

I fear for you. “I can help you run. They say up North there are no slaves.”

 

_I can protect you._

 

_No you can’t. No one can._ You say nothing.

 

The others begin to die. They are brought to the Big House, and never come out again.

 

One night, it is your turn. I thought you would fight and scream, claw and curse. But you go silently. _The house of the night creatures. Where I belong. I accept myself._

Like a fool, I follow you. I can feel the weight of the moon as it ascends into the night sky. It is full tonight. _You should not go. You know what is going to happen._

_Let it._

Outside the plantation gates, a crowd gathers, many white men and women. They, too, have heard the rumors of the slave girl practicing witchcraft, cavorting with demons. Killing white men and their property. A lynch mob, thirsty for blood.

 

Inside the grand parlor of the Big House, the ground is slick with old blood. The Aristocrat waits, a goblet of deep red in his hands. It is too thick to be wine.

 

There are others too, all the ones that have disappeared. They are not dead, but neither are they alive. They smell your blood and slaver.

 

The moon ascends full into the night sky.

 

_What are you?_

_You know what I am._

 

I am the wolf. _Wolf of God._ I hear their screams as I tear into them. Former friends, brothers and sisters in this strange land.

 

_You will not surrender while I live._

 

I can smell the intoxicating scent of fear, and it does not belong to you. For the first time, there is surprise in his eyes.

 

Amidst the slaughter, you walk out into the screaming white mob outside.

 

_It’s not him. It’s me. This is what I am._

The crowd swallows you. You close your eyes as they string you up on the branches. The Aristocrat screams as the flames engulf your body.

_My battle must end._

_Let it end._

We write the ending in blood. As it was always going to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this chapter drafted for awhile. I wanted to go in chronological order, and chronologically, this would've been the last life Ethanessa lived before they incarnated in late 1800s Victorian England (this chapter is probably set sometime between 1800-1850). But I really struggled with all the in-between lives and I don't know if I will ever get around to publishing those, so I just thought I'd finally release this one into the wild. Thank you for reading.


End file.
